The wonderful world of blogging

Ive really started enjoying the whole community thing that goes along with doing a particular type of blogging. There is a sense of comradeship which comes from writing about your current parenting nightmare. You also find that very occasionally you get tagged. This is proof that others read your drivel, but more importantly than that you can actually find out a bit more about your blogging comrades, whilst they discover key Smash Hits style facts about you. My favourite colour is red. Thank-you to Katherine of Supply and Demands

1. What are your current obsessions? must lose weight, must get fit, must lose weight, must get fit, when will I fit in with sleep? is the baby teething? where can I get a few summer t-shirts cheaply? blog, blog, blog

2. Which item of clothes do you wear most often? Without a Shadow of a doubt my jeans, the back pocket buttons of which have just fallen off in the car. Nothing else fits, must lose weight, must lose weight, must get fit. Where are the crisps?

3. What's for dinner tonight? crisps, chocolate, strawberries, champagne. Oh, sorry, just dreaming. Spaghetti Carbonara.

4. What's the last thing you bought? Well, funny you should ask. Ive just been Sainsbury where I bought a whole shopping trolleys worth of food, except I didn't. As I went to pay for it after packing it all in my personal shopping bags only to find that toddler boy had used my bank card for his role playing shopping at the early learning centre till he got for his birthday and my bank card was actually sitting at home. Grrrr!!!

5. What are you currently listening to? Lily Allen, I'm saying no more, as I'm not renowned for my musical choices.

6. What are you doing at the weekend? I'm being Maid of Honour at my little sister's wedding.

7. What are you reading now? Glamour magazine, The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson and We are Wearing Out the Naughty Step by Mick Inkpen

8. Wow! How Do You stay looking so young? I find a complete lack of effort and a diet of junk food works wonders, drinking cola provides energy.

9. What is your guilty pleasure? Watching Home and Away. I'm so ashamed.

10. Who or what makes you laugh until you're weak? My husband usually manages it. Read that as you like, it depends on my mood!

11. First Spring thing? I'll have the lamb with roast potatoes and a bunch of daffodils after my cleaning session please.

12. Where are you planning on travelling to next?Suppose I had better go back to Sainsbury. We are holidaying in North Norfolk this year.

13. What was the best thing you ate or drank recently? A large glass of ice cool Coke and a packet of salt and vinegar kettle chips. I'm a simple sort of gal.

14. When did you last get tipsy? I haven't had the chance much recently due to excessive childcare considerations, but I did have 3 cocktails at Garden Mums weekend barbecue.

15. What is your favourite film? I love Moulin Rouge, its funny, well directed, visually stunning and a musical all rolled into one.

16. Share a piece of wisdom. If you put a lock on the outside of your toilet door the children cant chuck the loo rolls down the toilet, unsupervised.

17. What's your favourite song? I like anything by The Divine Comedy


18. If you could change anything in your life so far, what would it be? I think I should have trained to be a vet rather than an archaeologist and bought a house sooner.

Want to join the club? Simple, I tag you, you answer on your blog and replace one of the questions with your own. Then you tag 8 other people. The lucky tag goes to (but don't feel obliged!):

Garden Mum

Jo Neary


Anjie

Steffi

Alex

Emily

Mrs C

Mrs B

The wonderful world of blogging

Women Drivers

What is it with women drivers? I'm one of them and I don't behave in the way that I see many of them doing nowadays. I admit that I am one of a rare breed, happy to drive anywhere in any kind of vehicle including a transit van. In fact, I drove across southern Spain when I was about 18 and for work courier rare, often priceless eminently breakable antiquities in a knackered old van. So, perhaps I'm a bit of an exception. Ive only had one accident and that was when a young boy decided not to give way on a roundabout that I was on!

However, I'm becoming increasingly concerned about the behaviour of women drivers on the roads, especially those with children. I would go as far as to say that they are as bad as people who drive wearing hats. I don't mean those with baby on board stickers, I can understand their momentary distraction, I mean ones with full blown kids. Take today for example, I was leisurely making my way to the hospital to talk about my forthcoming operation and being over careful with my driving as I was a little bit mentally pre-occupied. I pulled into a road and drove up it, on the other side of the road were lots of parked cars. Not my issue, there were none on my side and so I had right of way. Half way down the road a car screeches towards me, clearly over the speed limit. I stop ( slam on my brakes), as there is a gap in the cars for the person to pull into whilst I carry on my way. The car draws closer, not wanting to pull into the space and effectively trying to get me to reverse down the road (illegal in my understanding). 'MMMM', I think, along with ' I hope I'm not going to be late' and ' this woman clearly cant steer into that large space'. So I sit there as I'm not prepared to risk an accident. The result? The woman slowly steers into the space whilst screaming 'stupid b***ch' at me. Needless to say, she had a car full of children. Forget, whether I'm in the right or not, is there any excuse for that sort of behaviour in front of children? I think not!

This isn't the first time Ive witnessed this sort of behaviour from women who have children in the car. Whilst walking along in Cambridge the other day I saw a similar scenario. In fact it seems to be increasingly common and highlights two things to me:
1) It seems to be perfectly possible to pass your driving test without the need to be able to demonstrate that you can steer your car.
2) It is no surprise that children are becoming more and more aggressive if they witness this sort of behaviour from their parents as an everyday, normal sort of thing.

I do find this all shocking as I try to not swear in front of my children and I always act towards others as I would expect to be treated myself. In other words, I use manners and I expect that of my children. Since when did it become acceptable for this not to be the case?

Women Drivers

Comments Please :)

Im thinking about moving over to Wordpress. The site isn't 100% finished, its a work in progress.
I would really appreciate your comments as I have to pay $10 to move my domain over and im not convinced its worth it.
Have a look, its at: http://beingamummy.wordpress.com/
Thanks a lot!

Comments Please :)

Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My children are trying to kill me through the means of sleep deprivation. Enough said.

Yesterday was Toddler boy's first day at Pre-school. I'm sure I felt more nervous than he did. It all started well, he ran into the place Roary the Racing Car rucksack flapping, as its a bit too big and effectively said; 'that's it mum, I'm off for an independent life'. I was pleased, a bit of peace, at least whilst I drove home anyhow.

Two hours later it was time to collect him, I queued patiently outside, with a slight air of unease. The buggy got stuck in the door and all I could hear was someone crying. Somehow I got a bit jostled out of the way whilst I was parking Fifi. Never mind, I queue jumped, to evil looks and still got nowhere. A new plan of attack took me around the side of the queue and directly behind the little fella, who was distraught and sitting on one of the teachers laps. Oh, dear. Not such an independent little fella then. Its difficult to know what to do in such circumstances. So I grabbed him, thanked the teachers and ran away. Not such a good start then.

Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cycling Helmets and Spades

Glorious weather, thought I'd take a leaf out of Mrs Little Garden Helpers book and get out into the garden. Little did I know she has been training the boy and I was instructed to dig for about 2 hours. Unrelenting commands and assistance. Still, Ive got a lot done. His regular viewing of Bob the Builder has obviously instilled an awareness of health and safety as I had to spend most of the time digging whilst wearing my cycling helmet.

I have to agree with her though, gardening is one of the most special things you can do with a child. We spent 5 minutes watching a snail crawl along a twig, something I haven't done since I was about 6. We looked at worms and laughed at one that had tied itself into a knot (sorry animal lovers) and we ran around with abandon once we had finished digging a particular section. We sat on the concrete outside the summerhouse and ate apples and chatted. I felt we were really connecting, both of us having a love of the outdoors and digging in the mud! It was great fun, worthwhile and made a real change from the television and colouring we spend a lot of time doing. Lets hope the summer stays dry, as I'm looking forward to doing lots more gardening this year!

Cycling Helmets and Spades

Being Thwarted By Cyberpatrol

It went straight over my head at the time. Apparently it went over the heads of most of the audience, which is probably what Simon Groome intended. I am of course referring to the incredible moment where one of the longest serving Blue Peter presenters said, “Great pair of knockers there.” after a feature on door bells and, well, knockers. I would link to the clip on youtube but I can’t, as Cyberpatrol 7.7 has been set up to filter any site containing the word “knockers”.


Cyerpatrol 7.7 is the latest version of Cyberpatrol LLC’s (not the words most imaginatively named company but I suppose it avoids confusion) Internet filtering software. It can also be used to filter/time restrict any software use but I’m sure most people use it to stop their kids either unwittingly getting exposed to boobs whilst looking for great clips featuring Blue Peter alumni or to stop their hubbies looking at boobs whilst actually looking for boobs. Since beingamummy-mummy isn’t the sort of person to need cyberpatrol’ing, she’s set the parameters and unleashed it upon me, her hubby, in an attempt to completely ruin the Internet.


When I was a nipper computers didn’t connect to the Internet, and if you had a PC it had imaginatively colour displays like “EGA”. Even if we had a modem and naughty websites existed, anything displayed in cyan, magenta and white wouldn’t have excited me very much. I probably wasn’t odd in that.


Of course nowadays things are different. I understand the late Paul Raymond, one of Soho’s original pornographers, owed most of his fortune to property rather than fine art publications when he passed away because there's naff all money in printing rude magazines when the Internet has it all for free. Naughty and more importantly inappropriate images and websites are all over the Internet.


Any parent who doesn’t monitor their child’s Internet activities is heading down the wrong road and will probably end up buying their 12 year old a copy of the 18 certificated game, Grand Theft Auto IV at some point because it’s a video game and video games are for kids.


You can’t blame the kids for wanting to see what they’re not allowed to, it’s human nature but what they see and do can affect them profoundly and in ways they wont realise at the time.


There are some basics you can do as a parent that are free, like setting a computer up in a communal room and allowing access only when supervised but realistically you’re not going to be there all the time. Internet browsers are also aiding and abetting kids curiosity by introducing features that clear the history of visited websites- you now you can’t even check after the event.


So I’ve been placed in the position of a youngster who is innocently looking for some Blue Peter clips and who wants to have a look at some pictures of naughty ladies. I realise this is a big favour I’m doing wifey, but that’s just the kind of guy I am.


Thwarted in my endeavour to accidentally stumble upon boobs with a great alibi already in place. I decided to accidentally head over to the playboy website to read some of their informative articles. I should say there is nothing wrong with the Playboy website. I’ve, cough, heard it does feature interesting articles and features but for the purpose of this test I’m 12 again and the stirring in my pants has more than the girls netball team to fixate on.


The discussion of whether porn is good/bad/unhealthy is fortunately well outside of my remit here.

Dang, I’m greeted with Cyberpatrol’s “Access Restricted” screen. Much as I was for my attempts to provide you with a link to a bit of Blue Peter history.

Over the next half an hour (it appears I’ve had the time restriction function enabled on me too), I completely fail to find any “minge” and any number of more unpleasant euphemisms for lady bits that most parents wouldn’t be aware of but thanks to a Christmas gift of Viz Magazines Roger’s Profanisaurus, are now imprinted upon my mind (shame Cyberpatrol can’t keep an eye on your bookcase really).

I’m 34 and I know my round computers. I’ve used telnet for goodness sake and don’t baulk at the idea of a command line. But I can’t get round Cyberpatrol. In a moment of what I considered at the time genius, I hit control, alt and delete and crash out of the programme. If its not running, I can visit any number of naturist websites to see what the fresh air does. But I can’t, its still working. Dang from my 12 year old perspective but good work from my responsible parenting perspective.

Talking to wifey, it didn’t take much to set up. All the rude stuff is barred by using a slider so you don’t have to mire yourself in a sea of filth to block the sea of filth, it just knows. Hopefully the chaps at Cyberpatrol that have to work out which key words get blocked get some counselling but from my perspective as an end user, its ace. Definitely something worth owning if you have teenage kids about (or younger kids with a good vocabulary) and as long as you give your husband the password to amend the settings, I can wholeheartedly recommend this product.

Now, wifey, can you turn this time restriction limiter off?

Being Thwarted By Cyberpatrol

General Non-Specific Answers

The boy woke up with this rash. Rather fetching isn't it, in an 'oh my god, I hope I don't get it' manner.

Panic; 'MUUUUUMMMMM!!! he has this rash...' That was me.

Mum; ' No question about it, he has German Measles..'

Me; 'Oh God!'

Boy; 'Oh God! Ohhhhh GODDD!'

Me thinking; MMM, perhaps I shouldn't have said that...

Onto NHS DIRECT then

Me; 'My boy has this rash.'

NHS DIRECT; ' ...name, date of birth, surgery...'

Me; 'Ummm, But he has this rash and is very distressed. Hes had his MMR'. Thinking to myself; 'Christ! send me an ambulance now!'

NHS DIRECT; 'Does he have a swelling in his groin?'

Me; 'Don't think so...'

NHS DIRECT; 'Take him to a pharmacist.'

Me thinking; How helpful is that? fob you off to the private sector, moan, moan...

At the Pharmacy

Me; 'Hes got this rash.' Pointing at small boy in a sort of absent manner intended to indicate to any other people present that he may or may not belong to me with his plague.

Pharmacist; 'yes rash, general rash, you have him too wrapped up.'

Me; 'It looks like measles.'

Pharmacist; ' no, general rash.'

Me; 'Is it contagious?'

Pharmacist; 'no, could be allergy, general rash.'

2pm Birthday party 6 children plus Fifi are playing happily. Too happily, if it was film you would be selecting one for the monster to eat.

6.15 pm

Boy; 'Muummmm...' intense crying

Me; 'Right! [I have a habit of saying this word], off to emergency doctors, we need to know about this.'

At the Doctors

Doctor; 'its a non specific general viral rash, give him Calpol.'

Great, so now Ive potentially infected 6 children with a non-specific general viral rash and Ive come to the conclusion that at doctor/pharmacist university you are taught a few stock phrases for most illnesses:

When faced with the plague; 'Its a virus, you can't have any antibiotics'

When faced with illness in rash form; 'its a non specific general viral rash'

When faced with death; 'I'm afraid he/ shes's passed away'

Its amazing how much the medical profession has in common with another, the IT consultant/ help desk; 'turn the computer off and on again.' IT person makes escape.

Apologies friends, I listened to initial medical advice, I thought it was nothing to worry about. It isn't anything to worry about, but I fear I may have spread the happiness.

General Non-Specific Answers

I must be getting old

Life works in mysterious ways, when you are early twenties you can stay up all night if you need to. I remember dancing the night away at various London nightclubs, Carwash, Home, the Camden Palace and so on. We would then come home at about 4 am and I would get up for work, if it was a Thursday night for the 7. 15 am train. I don't ever remember being that tired or bothered about my lack of sleep.
Roughly fifteen years later, and I am permanently tired to the extreme that sometimes I can't even see or think properly, and you're lucky if you get a well constructed sentence out of me. Just ask hubby or the builder, both noticed that I had managed to park the car literally 3mm from the wall of our house. I hadn't even noticed.
So what is a typical night at the moment?
6.45 Bedtime for all with a story, a bottle of milk for Fifi and pink milk for toddler boy who won't really drink it but enjoys saying the word 'Lola'.
7.15 Finally sleep for the kids and chores for us
11.25 Bottle for Fifi
12.00 Stirring from the boy- nothing too dramatic
1.30 Bottle for Fifi
2.00 Toddler nightmare
3.30 Bottle for Fifi
4.00 Fifi coo-ing and talking practice
5.00 Toddler Stirring and talking practice (no! Fifi, Annabel, choc!, No!, No!, Yuck, YUCK, Mamma, Dadda, Dadda)
6.00 Toddler awake, mummy collapsed in bed, hubby escapes to work

In conclusion to all of this:

• I am getting old.
• I need an 18- 23 year old, with childcare qualifications, a big stereo system and a shed conversion to a pub/ bar. This would leave me free to have sleep, if I can, through the added noise.
• Its quite hard work having two under 3 (just).

I must be getting old

Being a Stepford Wife

No new posts the last few days, as I have been busy Stepford wife-ing. I also managed to fit in a trip to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and London Zoo (AKA somewhere for the whole of London to take the kids to on Easter Monday).

The London Zoo trip stands out for me, as I was dragged into the At Home with the Aardvarks Experience with toddler boy. It's basically a series of concrete tunnels (storm drains?) which enable you to see the aardvarks close up. I managed to meet three dads and about 12 children close up. How I love being wedged into a small space with strangers.

Still, in homage to Pom Pom Emporium and Mrs C, I decided to go all crafty and have a go at making a little dress for baby girl (who shall be forevermore known by her family nickname of Fifi). She needs a bridesmaid dress for my sisters wedding and I'm blowed if I am going to spend £59 on one, the going rate in local baby clothes shop Its a Small World.

I haven't made a dress in quite some time and this one happened to be lined, something I have never done before. The picture above depicts the nearly finished article. I didn't realise that it was lined until I got home from the fabric shop, so I utilised an old cotton duvet, don't tell anyone. I'm quite pleased with it. Although, I am looking at it in the same way as I look at DIY at home. With an over zealous eye and thoughts of 'if only, I hadn't got distracted by that gripping bit in Eastenders/ Home and Away/ Fimbles'. Never mind.

Continuing the home-making theme, I made some cakes with toddler boy. He loves stirring the mixture up and trying his best to spread it all around the kitchen. He particularly favours the bread bin as its quite hard to clean. I'm now trying to get him to stop saying 'yuck' and eat one. Its hard being a domestic goddess.

Being a Stepford Wife

Toddler Vocabulary

On any one day several words pop out of toddlers mouth, in a clearly thought about manner. I think the choice of words does most probably say something about toddler psychology. Toddler boy is taking part in a study on child language at the University of Hertfordshire. I am eagerly awaiting the results. Suspicion and observations tell me that male language development is slower than female, but I'm eager to see if the results bear this generalisation out.
I thought I would delve into this a bit more on the Internet. The first thing that came up was that 'toddler is a general term used for babies between the ages of 12 and 24 months'. Toddler boy, is not technically a toddler then. Then this gem: Expand your toddler's vocabulary by constantly introducing new words. Use the word "silverware" instead of always saying "fork" or "spoon." Now, perhaps I'm mistaken but I think if he went to pre-school saying 'pass me the silverware' at break-time I might be subjected to another one of those 'quiet words'. I suppose I could always blame it on my google Internet searching that always seems to result in American advice. But hey, American kids might be a different species, but essentially in terms of medical conditions they are the same as British (lol).
Further searching on other sites, too many to list here (I cant be bothered), seem to suggest that just like growth spurts there are word spurts. If you show a baby the same thing 5 times they generally learn that word and you should try to use a mixture of easy and difficult/ complex words.
I'm going wrong somewhere then, because at two my boy knows exactly what I'm saying, but just doesn't say that much- or much I can understand. Don't get me wrong, he has a vocabulary of about 100 words at least, but he chooses to use the same few most days. Those words are mainly; more, Fifi, Annabel, yuck, no, wow, door, me, drink and pear. Does this say something about his psychology in the sense that these are the things going through his mind? I think this is possibly the case, but I would like to think he is considering quantum physics in an absent kind of way. Or does he have a massive build-up of earwax? I think I'm off for a hearing test, just to check.

Toddler Vocabulary

On this day in history

Two (longish) years ago Toddler Boy entered the world. It had been a long and protracted labour, he started coming, then when we got to the hospital and I was 5cm dilated he had a change of heart. I don't much like hospitals either. After another 5 hour wait, I was given a Syntocinon drip and eventually, 3 days after the waters broke, our boy entered the world. Unfortunately, daddy/ hubby had forgotten to change the music on his MP3 player so it was to Symphony of Destruction by Megadeath. Luckily for daddy, I was completely oblivious to this, as I was focusing on the 4 midwifes and doctor peering at my nether regions and feeling a bit funny because of all the gas and air. In my birth plan I had visualised something calming like Portishead.

For the first 10 months of his life, he had me up at night at least 3 times. He breath held and passed out several times a day, and was rushed to A & E twice because of it. It turned out he had undiagnosed Silent Acid Reflux. He still breath-holds now, but its a behavioural thing and I'm blase about it. I was at my wits end, I really didn't think that it would be quite so hard to look after a baby. I remember thinking to myself all day long, 'please god, let him make it to 5 years old'. I have to admit to feeling a bit trapped by it all at times. At other times the whole situation that I found myself in was frankly hilarious and I think some of my blog posts reflect this.

During the following year, I returned to work and realised that I actually missed the little fella, he is funny, charming, sweet and most of all my baby. I spent a lot of this year feeling guilty about not spending as much time as I could with him, but work did provide a bit of an escape from constant television and nose blowing. For both of us. Toddler boy, also developed a special relationship with his grandparents and really feels at home in their company which is brilliant.

Now he is two, I cannot describe the range of emotions that I have reserved especially for him. From utterly besotted to utterly aggravated, from pure happiness to pure sadness at the thought that someday he will be someone else's boy. I have even taken to enjoying ironing his little t-shirts and trousers!

Two years ago my world changed for the better and I cannot dream of existing without him. Happy Birthday little man xx

On this day in history

Join the 3rd and Bird Community

I have to admit that when I first saw 3rd and bird on Cbeebies I was a bit sceptical by the Americaness of it all. However, repetition causes great changes in opinion and it has rapidly become one of our absolute favourite programmes. It's a light-hearted, easy going, sweet, pre-school programme about a community of birds who live in an old tree. The graphic imagery is stunning and is like nothing else Ive seen. With catchy songs and easily digested messages, it really is worth a watch. One of the characters also happens to share my little boys name, which, in our book, makes it super-cool.
We spend quite a lot of time of the Cbeebies website, clicking the mouse, with me usually saying things like 'no, you'll close the computer down' and 'don't press that button'. However, it passes the time in an active fashion, so I was delighted to discover that there is actually a 3rd and Bird website. The website really captures the essence of the programme. You start off my clicking Samuel who flies around the tree to different spots with the use of your mouse. You'll see when you have a look. It really is one of the best looking interactive kids websites Ive seen, using the same graphic style as the programme.
There's loads of stuff to do, lots of games, a few which occupied me and hubby (admittedly with a glass of wine in hand). You can print out certificates for success in the games, so I'm currently doing one for hubby. There's also the chance to meet each of the characters and see a bit of video about them. There are literally tons of print-outs which Toddler Boy loves doing and then rushing off at high speed brandishing his trophy, so that's us occupied for weeks. The great thing is that it all works well on my modestly specified computer.
3rd and Bird stands out from other shows because of its music. What other show has music which features the world whistling champion! When you go exploring the tree on the website you hear the theme tune, should you wish to sing along to it click here for the words. Samuel, the main character in the show also sings a funky little song, to join in with the words you can get a printed song sheet if you click here.
All in all, even if you don't have a pre-schooler have a little look at the website, as I think it will probably make you smile. Just make sure you turn the sound off or plug your headphones in if you work in a stuffy office, as you might raise a few eyebrows!

Join the 3rd and Bird Community

An average day

April 6th 2009 9.30 am, the sun is shining, the birds are tweeting, chattering and chirruping. Toddler boy is chomping at the bit to get out. Mummy feels exhausted from many many nights of disturbed sleep. The day starts well, a walk through the park, up to the town, admiring the Magnolia coming into bloom and the sunlight glinting through the trees. Things feel good and right about the world.

April 6th 3.30 pm, fast forward to Baby Theatre class at the Abbey Theatre, a small boy is being dragged across the floor by one arm screaming, whilst his mother is balancing a baby. The whole class of 20 mothers, one dad, one granny, one grandad and children are looking on, some in disgust, some in astonishment others in a ' Ive paid £4 for this spectacle' kind of way. The mother contemplates throwing herself on the floor in a 'Ive had enough please help me, take me away' kind of fashion. She sits down and does her best to restrain the boy causing minimum disturbance, whilst conscientiously ignoring all the looks. The class leader, a cheery in a sort of Cbeebies way, person has a quiet word 'please stop your child from playing with my puppets, I need them for the songs, there's a Friday morning class with a less wide age range.' To all mothers of boys aged one or under, this will be you, soon.

An average day

Fabulous blog

Anjie of Pom Pom Emporium has given me a fabulous blog award! I'm so pleased! I love reading her blog as its full of great inspirational crafty ideas. My favourites so far have been the bread and butter pudding and the Easter Bunnies I'm currently sewing.

To accept this award, I must list 5 things that I am addicted to and pass the award on to blogs I enjoy reading.Here goes;

My addictions, in no particular order:
1. Chocolate in any of its forms, cake, pure (well, dairy milk), drink...

2. Sleep I need more!!!!!!

3. Television, I cant help but watch rubbish such as Home and Away and Eastenders, yes I am ashamed of myself.

4. Going to the beach. I absolutely love going on long walks on Holkham Beach in North Norfolk and take any opportunity I can to do so

5. Clothes shopping. I just wish I could do it more, unfortunately the moths don't let me.

Now, my awards for fabulous blog go to:

Little Garden Helpers; a fab new St Albans blog about gardening with kids, I cant wait to read more

Suburban Mum; Its always full of interesting posts about Jenni's life in Manchester

Mummy Do That; formerly the Cartside blog, its great to read all about cubling who is a similar age to Toddler Boy and the inspirational projects that Steffi is working on in Glasgow

The Life and Times of Mrs B; Another take on life in St Albans as a mummy. Kirsty makes me laugh, I particularly enjoyed her post about the time her car broke down in the local car park.

The mechanics: Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it. Don’t forget to mention the person who gives you the award. Write 5 things you are addicted to. Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like Don’t forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.

Fabulous blog

The joy of shopping for bread

As I walk the short 2 minutes back to my house from the local supermarket eating a bar of the finest Swiss chocolate known to man (at the greatest cost), I realise that I am in fact cursed. I live in such a spot in St Albans that I cannot help but spend money. Yes, Ive not mentioned this directly before but we live by Waitrose. This has its pro's and con's it is by the very nature of the supermarket a nice place to live, if the shop ever sold out to Aldi, I'm sure my house price would plummet.
However, living here does cost far more than the house, rates and council tax I am being indirectly taxed by the John Lewis empire. Where else could you have the luxury of popping out for a loaf to bread but to return with handcrafted coffee beans and grouse for tea? As far, as my husband is concerned I should be banned from going out for a loaf of bread, especially as Ive managed to spend £426.99 in the last two months on this very thing. I could argue that its the small pleasures in life which are the finest. However, I'm sure we would both be half a stone lighter without all this bread.

The joy of shopping for bread

Songs for Sleeping

When Toddler Boy was very small, I was having problems getting him to sleep at night and a friend suggested putting some music on. This has worked miracles, however I'm beginning to wonder if I am actually subconsciously brain-washing my little boy. You see, the problem is that you don't want to play the same stuff every night, as then, I'm convinced you would be brain-washing. At the same time, you need calm, classic, easy listening stuff. Our record collection is full of Indie and Prog- Rock music. We don't have much suitable to choose from. Thus, so far he has listened in his cot to:

• Cat Stevens Greatest Hits- the all time favourite for him, he even nods along to this in the car (I have spawned a hippy child) and I think I can hear him singing to this as I type


• Music From In the Night Garden


• BetaBand


• Gina Ford's Nursery Rhymes and Lullaby's


• The Beach Boys Greatest Hits


• Some random prog-rock/ Pink Floyd which I'm not sure of without going up to his bedroom

The thing is, I reckon I should be broadening his musical experiences as I don't want him to be the un-coolest boy in the class, favouring Dad musak. So, any suggestions would be most welcome. Please note, I am not putting him forward for a social experiment on the effects of easy listening music on brain development, for all I know it could actually constitute the equivalent of toddler water torture. And he might force me to listen to Nana Mouskouri or something similar when I'm too elderly or infirm to do anything about it.

Songs for Sleeping

Book Review: My Bump and Me by Myleene Klass

I only get a micro-second of free time to myself per day and much of that is taken up blogging or thinking of blog posts, so reading a book is a real luxury. Just as well then that this book provided me with a review opportunity at the same time.
My thoughts on Myleene Klass vary, but mainly I'm of the opinion that she is a bit full of herself, rather condescending and extra-ordinarily lucky. I'd probably be friends with her, but only so I could attempt to outwit her at every given opportunity (not something I do to any of my lovely existing friends, I should say- in case they are reading this!!!). The book didn't do anything to dispel this opinion and the woman is obsessed by her Marks and Spencer modelling contract. There is nothing more annoying than rich celebrities telling the plebs about how they get lots of free stuff. Who needs two suitcases of ballet shoes (from Marks and Spencer) or so many pushchairs they don't know what to do with them so they have to turn some down. There are people out there, the people that probably inadvertently keep the whole celebrity industry going, that have to go to the local charity shop for their pushchair!
The advice was fairly sensible, and I suppose if you were a bit young and naive it would help. However, the shopping recommendations were a bit over the top. You don't need to get a breast pump in advance for the baby, you can pick one up at anytime if you feel that breastfeeding is for you. And the suggestion that you should buy snuggly clothes for afterwards, well, come on, what happened to wearing your maternity clothes for the first few weeks or a pair of joggers and a t-shirt? The phrase even wound me up.
I was amazed that the book was a Sunday Times Bestseller. I can only imagine that it was bought by lots of well meaning mother-in-laws. I was also a bit mislead, as I was expecting a pregnancy diary written in the present tense, as it was at the time. What this book actually does is reflect on the content of her diaries from the point of view of hindsight. We also have little bits written by her future husband. They didn't read like a man had written them to me, but I could be wrong.
I think the book would be good if you are a younger mum who is a bit apprehensive about pregnancy and likes a bit of celebrity gossip. I have to admit liking the voyeuristic aspects of it, we heard what happened on the modelling shoots and what Johnny Depp said to her. If you are a bit more experienced in life, it is less appealing. However, its an easy read so if you want a bit of a glimpse into another world without challenging your brain then it does hold your interest and I read it extremely quickly.
It's a genre of pregnancy book that Ive not really encountered before but I'd like to read more; how about Pregnancy and the Beckhams or My Big Fat Bottom; Peter Kays look at pregnant celebrities including hospital tips from Fearne Britton as serialised in Heat magazine. Now that would be a laugh.

Book Review: My Bump and Me by Myleene Klass

Duxford with a toddler

Last weekend was an epic one for Toddler Boy as we took him on his first trip to the Imperial War Museum Duxford. A splendid day was had by all, especially Toddler Boy who was allowed off his reins in the American Air Hanger and ran to his hearts content around the big planes for an hour and a half. The rest of the time he was somewhat straining at the leash (see above pictures). Despite not even being two, he clearly understood what he was seeing, apart from the bomb which he did his best to detonate/ de-activate (I'm not sure which ).

Highlights were going on-board Concord and the BOAC plane. He also enjoyed the inter actives which required using headphones and worked out how to use them very quickly. Favourite words of the day were 'Truck and WOW!' accompanied by pointing and high speed running toward the aforementioned object.

As a museum curator, I was interested to see how he would deal with somewhere like Duxford which is far from the traditional set-up of cases and small objects with labels. I was amazed at how remarkably well behaved he was, particularly as we tried our best to explain things to him. Something I imagine would be tedious for some adults. Like any parent, I was slightly concerned how he would deal with some of the images of war, violence, injury and guns. However, they didn't seem to hold much interest when compared to trucks and planes so I didn't have to worry.

Duxford is quite well kitted out for children, with two cafes, plenty of pushchair access and loads of space to run about. The only slight issue is the biting East Anglian wind which was reminiscent of January mornings spent on Holkham Beach. Throughout most of it Baby Girl remained asleep, perhaps I'm being sexist but now Ive got to think of a museum for girls.

Duxford with a toddler